Classic Poem

Majestically
trailing enormous shade and massive doom,
and coroneted with strange ice, the hours sweep,
with resolute tread and still deliberate breath
unhurryingly,
o'er the set altar of the upper deep
unto their catafalque of marble gloom
high-rais'd in the apparent realm of death,
to lie
statelily in Egyptian immobility,
eternally.

Slowly the sombre depths of thought expand,
a blossom of the darkness, wooing
into its heart the chill dew of the stars —
Then, suddenly,
by iron mace of midnight smitten, start,
dispers'd to soundless gulfs unrumorously,
the order'd pageant of the hours apart
and lists of time, set for the tragic play;
and aeons, curtaining, together roll
and open lay
the ancient feat, eternally renew'd,
the shaping mood,
the single moment of the unfolding soul: —

IN THE BEGINNING of years and mortal things
the deep was God and Nought,
and Night as yet unmade, and all our days.

Shaking the night from its creative wings
floats out the phantom butterfly of Thought,
floats out the soul —
dim-vision'd Psyche in a brooding gaze
upon lost ways
waving vain vans towards a mystic goal —
Whate'er the muttering heart may rede of dread,
O Night, in thy vast continent,
not knowing the gladness of thy veil'd consent,
thy deep is as a bosom, offering home
to futile spirits that roam
in the winds that blow beyond the bounds of lowly dear content

SILENCE expects the event:
No whisper alert in the whole void is heard;
No starry word
jewels the pall that drapes a nuptial bed,
the wings that fold a soul with mystery wed —
Only the eyes of Death, each livid moon
a ghastly symbol of our dream-dissent,
which Life compels its winged flower to wear
beneath the glaring mockery of noon —
As lightning, but without the lightning's flare
or thunder's clang.
as Death itself or Heart-of-Life laid bare,
one nuptial pang —

THEN, sketch'd in stars that struggle alive to space
agonizing in dumb birth
before the stony gaze of the helpless face —
O chords of the pain'd earths
throbbing with the world's dearth!
Sketch'd only, O never attaining in all time
the point of peace sublime,
that tells its diamond glory and world defied,
beginning still, deferr'd
until this moment takes the eternal tide —